Hizb Al-Dawa was formed in 1957[2] by a well known and respected Shi'ite leader whose name was Mohammed Sadiq Al-Qamousee. His aim was to create a party and a movement which would promote Islamic values and ethics, political awareness, combat secularism, and create an Islamic state in Iraq. This came at a time when politics in Iraq was dominated by secularist Arab nationalist and socialist ideas. Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr – who was widely recognized as a leading philosopher, theologian, and political theorist – quickly emerged as the leading member. One of their main goals was to destroy Saddam. It was he who laid out the foundations for the party and its political ideology, based on Wilayat Al-Umma (Governance of the people). A "twin" Islamic Dawa Party was also founded in Lebanon by clerics who had studied in Najaf and supported Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr's vision of a resurgent Islam. Al-Qamousee was also known for organizing and leading with the creation of a political party in Lebanon known as "Hizbollah".

Hizb Al-Dawa gained strength in the 1970s recruiting from among the Shia ulama and youth. It waged an armed insurgency against the Iraqi government which initiated a crackdown on Shi'a political activism, driven in part by the secular nature of the Ba'thist ideology and in part by their view of a politicized Shi'a as a threat to the stability of the regime. During the 1970s, the government shutdown the Shi'a journal Risalat al-Islam and closed several religious educational institutions. The government passed a law obligating Iraqi students of the hawza to undertake national military service. The Ba'thists then began specifically targeting al-Da'wa members, arresting and imprisoning them from 1972 onwards. In 1973, someone killed the alleged head of al-Da'wa's Baghdad branch in prison. In 1974, 75 al-Da'wa members were arrested and sentenced to death by the Ba'thist revolutionary court.[3] In 1975, the government canceled the annual procession from Najaf to Karbala, known as marad al-ras. Although subject to repressive measures throughout the 1970s, large-scale opposition to the government by al-Da'wa goes back to the Safar Intifada of February 1977. Despite the government's ban on the celebration of marad al-ras, al-Da'wa organized the procession in 1977. They were subsequently attacked by police.[4] After this period it also interacted with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the future spiritual leader of Iran, during his exile in Najaf in Iraq. Widely viewed in the West as a terrorist organization at the time, the Dawa party was banned in 1980 and its members sentenced to death in absentia by the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council.[5]

Dawa supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran and in turn received support from the Iranian government. During the Iran–Iraq War, Iran backed a Dawa insurgency against Saddam Hussein's Baathist government in Iraq. In 1979, Dawa moved its headquarters to Tehran, the capital of Iran.[6] It bombed the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut in December 1981, the first of its international attacks.[7] Dawa party was thought to have been behind the bombing of the US embassy in Kuwait as well as other installations as punishment of Kuwait, America and France's military and financial assistance to Iraq in its war against Iran (see 1983 Kuwait bombings). One of those convicted for the bombing was Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, currently member of Iraq's parliament and member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ruling coalition.[8]

Despite this cooperation, al-Sadr's and Khomenei's visions of an Islamic Republic differed sharply in certain respects. While Khomeini argued the power of the state should rest with the ulema, al-Dawa supported the notion of power resting with the ummah, or in other words, the people. This disagreement was one factor that led to the formation of SCIRI as a separate group from al-Dawa. Al-Dawa claimed to have many Sunni members in the 1980s and coordinated with several Sunni Islamist groups at that stage.[9] On 31 March 1980, the Baathist regime's Revolutionary Command Council passed a law sentencing to death all past and present members of the Da'wa party, its affiliated organizations, and people working for its goals.[10] This was soon followed by a renewed and relentless purge of alleged and actual party members, with estimates varying on the numbers executed due to the secretive nature of the Iraqi regime.

In the West, al-Dawa was widely viewed as a terrorist organization during the Iran–Iraq War, especially since the West tended to be more supportive of Iraq during that conflict. It is thought responsible for a host of assassination attempts in Iraq against the president, prime minister and others, as well as attacks against Western and Sunni targets elsewhere. It attempted to assassinate Tariq Aziz, Hussein's longtime loyalist, in 1980; and Saddam Hussein himself in 1982 and 1987. Following Saddam's 2003 overthrow, the former President was ultimately hanged for the Dujail Massacre, the judicial reprisals and torture carried out following a Dawa assassination attempt on himself in 1982.

Tensions between Al-Sadr and Dawa came to light when Al-Sadr forbade his students at the seminary (Hawza) from joining the Dawa party. Amongst the retaliatory steps taken, Dawa switched their allegiance to Abu Al-Qassim Al-Khoei another leading scholar in Najaf.

After the Persian Gulf War, the interests of al-Dawa and the United States became more closely aligned. The efforts of al-Dawa representatives and other opponents of Saddam Hussein led to the founding of the Iraqi National Congress, which relied heavily on United States funding.[11] INC's political platform promised "human rights and rule of law within a constitutional, democratic, and pluralistic Iraq". The Dawa Party itself participated in the congress between 1992 and 1995, withdrawing because of disagreements with Kurdish parties over how Iraq should be governed after Hussein's eventual ouster.[12]

Most leaders of al-Dawa remained in exile in Iran and elsewhere until the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. During this period, some of its factions moved to SCIRI.[13] Al-Dawa party, in contrast to the other Shia Islamic Iraqi opposition parties, took a stance against the war. Ibrahim al-Jaafari was personally involved in ensuring that Al-Dawa participated in anti war protests across the UK in the run up to the 2003 Iraq war. After the invasion, both al-Dawa and SCIRI returned to Iraq. Al Dawa chose Nasariyah as its base of operations in Iraq and now essentially controls this city.[citation needed]

1982 – Al-Dawa assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein in Dujail fails. Heavy crack-downs on al-Dawa by Hussein's regime follow, leading to the Dujail Massacre. Many flee to Iran, where it suffers from competition with SCIRI.

1983 12 December – In Kuwait, the American and French embassies, Kuwait airport, the main oil refinery in Kuwait, and a residential area for Raytheon employees are bombed. 17 suspects were soon arrested, mostly al-Dawa members, including Jamal Jafaar Mohammed (currently member of Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition). Jamal Jafaar Mohammed escapes from Kuwait before the trial starts and is sentenced to death in absentia in 1984.